


What We Never Talked About

by Ronny_Lyle



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: M/M, Political, Vietnam War, War, World War I, World War II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:20:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28422333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ronny_Lyle/pseuds/Ronny_Lyle
Summary: The Katz are a multi-generational family whose lives have been ripped apart by war, violence, and addiction. Now in the 1950's, the youngest generation - Dave and Maggie Katz - are considered to be soft and naive, despite fighting personal battles of their own. But when a new war emerges, Dave is pressured by family and society to enlist as a man - and, specifically, the "man of the house." After generations of family who have lost their minds and lives to different wars, Dave is determined to remain unchanged and uneffected by the war in all the ways that matter. But between the horrifying realities of his new day-to-day life, and the budding romance between him and the mysterious Klaus Hargreeves, Dave struggles to remain as his quiet, conservative, passive self. He begins to question if it is at all possible not to be changed by his surroundings - or if he wants to keep resisting at all.
Relationships: Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz
Comments: 6
Kudos: 12
Collections: Hosted by Elliott's House: The Great Year End Fuck 2020 TUA Fandom Bang!





	What We Never Talked About

Sadness. This is all Brian Katz Sr. would ever know, or so his children and grandchildren thought. Brian Katz Sr. was born on August 14 1899, which was a damn shame to everyone except him. They viewed him with quiet scorn, with bitterness mixed with pity. They’d praise his bravery, but he served as a burden on the perfect American family he had made. 

Dave Katz was five years old the first time he heard his mother call his grandfather a hero. Dave had been complaining about grandpa’s grouchiness, and his mother whipped around to face him, bearing her white teeth under her red lipstick.

“That man is an American hero and you will treat him as such!” She snapped, making the small boy feel even smaller. 

After this, Brian Katz Sr. seemed untouchable in little Dave’s eyes. He viewed his grandfather with an awe that left him nearly speechless around the man, which was okay most of the time, because Brian Sr. didn’t talk much anyway.

He saw the jaded looks that his daughter-in-laws would throw in his direction when they thought he wasn’t watching. He saw the petrified looks on the faces of his grandchildren. He’d smile, and wouldn’t bother them. It was okay with him, all of it. His dream was to have a family and to know that they were safe and secure. Having their love and admiration was never a part of the deal.

Brian Katz Sr. was seventeen years old the first time he killed a man. He’d aim his rifle with shaking hands as his squad cheered him on behind him. The gun was heavier than he would’ve ever thought, and slippery from the palms of his hands. He was frozen in place, unsure if he could pull the trigger even if he wanted to. The redundant, irritating sound of the chants continued behind him-

“ _ KATZ! KATZ! KATZ! KATZ! KATZ!-” _

Brian shut off his thoughts, and felt as if he was stepping out of his body. As if he was someone else, reading about a character in a novel. He relaxed his shoulders, focused his eyes, and took a deep breath - just like he was taught. As he exhaled, he pulled the trigger.

The man crumpled to the ground. The cheering stopped abruptly, and the silence was worse. The sight looked almost comical, as if some God-like ventriloquist had dropped it’s strings, and the puppet had fallen before them. Brian wanted to scream, cry, puke - but he wasn’t even sure if he felt like himself anymore.

The squad offered him weak smiles and quietly talked about the lives he had saved that day with forced cheerfulness. Brian didn’t interact.

The man he had shot was named Heinrich Lehmann. He was twenty years old and came from Hamburg. He believed in peace above all else, and he’d never killed anyone. 

Brian Katz Sr. returned from the war with a back that would never feel the same, and a big, ugly scar across his torso. His old town would look a little darker, a little bleeker. It would rain more, and skies would scarcely look blue, but he’d try his best to return to life as it was before. He married his high school sweetheart, Janet McGregor, soon after returning, and their first son was born shortly after. They named him Brian, because Janet wanted him to have his father’s name, and Brian Sr. rarely had opinions on these things anymore.

He seeked out the normalcy in everything he could. He never complained about going into the office on Monday mornings, or working after hours. He never went the extra mile, but never took short cuts either. He enjoyed doing the crosswords in the paper, collected coins, and never spent money on things he didn’t need. He enjoyed a simple life, and pitied those who wanted more.

In 1920, the second son of Brian and Janet Katz was born just fourteen months after the first. Janet asked Brian if he had a name in mind, expecting his usual indifference. She was taken aback when he cleared his throat and said-

“Henry.”

She shook her head, trying to hide her obvious surprise.

“Why Henry?”

Brian didn’t answer. He could never place why, just like he could never understand why it would hurt to look into Henry’s eyes. So, he just kept quiet about these things.

In the first week of Summer when Brian Jr. was eight and Henry was seven, they bought two identical toy guns from the drugstore. They cost a dime each, and they made a clicking sound when the button in place of a trigger was pushed. The toys were much smaller than real guns, and the barrels were painted bright blue. But that didn’t stop Brian Sr. from slapping his eldest son across the face at the sight of them.

He firmly grasped Brian Jr.’s shoulder in one hand, and shook the toy in the other.

“Do you think this is a goddamn game?” Brian Sr. demanded, a wild look in his bloodshot eyes. 

Brian Jr. tensed up in his father’s hands and choked back a sob.

“No sir! We’re sorry sir!”

Henry watched on and cried. 

As their father took Brian Jr. to the shed, Henry gathered up the toys. He dug a hole next to the shed and dropped the guns inside. With every lash Brian Jr. bared on his back, Henry dumped another shovel-full of dirt into the hole.

When the stock market crashed in 1929, Brian Sr. lost his office job. Henry lost his job at the pictures, because no one could afford to go anymore. Brian Jr. kept his job as a paperboy for a while, but eventually he was let go as well. Nothing in Brian Jr.’s life would ever bring him more stress, but nothing would bring him more relief either. 

With no income, desperation came. Janet got a job as a telephone operator, despite Brian Sr.’s continued insistence that she should not work. 

Humiliated by his wife’s success, and bored without a job, Brian Sr. had too much time to himself. The noise in his head grew louder, and he grew angrier. On the rare nights when he wasn’t checking for hidden listening devices in the furniture, he was convinced his family was spying on him. He accused Janet of trying to take the boys and run away, and his mind told him that Junior and Henry didn’t really love him. 

When Roosevelt was elected, he brought his New Deal with him. By 1933, Brian Sr. was employed again. He made less than half of what he previously made, but it was enough to keep his mind occupied and his pride in check. By this time, Brian Jr. had left to go find work elsewhere. No one had seen him in nearly a year. He wrote to Henry once or twice a month, but couldn’t always afford to send his letters.

Henry replaced his brother as a paperboy, and with all three members of the household contributing, things were starting to look up for them.

Other families weren’t so lucky. 

As Henry became a young man, the economy started to slip back into normalcy. 

In 1938, Brian came home. In 1939, Henry met Susan. In 1940, their son Dave was born. In 1941, Henry and Brian went to war.

That’s where Henry saw a dead body for the first time. That’s where he saw the things he could never bring himself to talk about. Because if he talked about them, they would be real things that happened to real people. And if they happened to real people, they could happen to him. 

Shortly after Henry came back, he got quiet. Not mute, but real quiet. He only spoke when it was absolutely necessary. He wouldn’t look into his wife’s eyes when they made love. He wouldn’t close his eyes either, so he’d often stare off to the side in a way she’d come to resent. He refused to hold Dave, and when Susan made him, he’d hold his son stiff as a board. When Brian Jr. came to visit, they’d sit on the back porch, their eyes on the garden, but their minds still at war. Brian talked a lot. Often the things he said hurt and offended those around him, but he continued to speak his mind. War had made him a harsh man, and the lack of understanding from the people around him made him harsher.

_ Don’t you know? _

He’d think to himself when his wife laughed or his sister in law talked about some film or recipe or something else that didn’t really matter.

_ Don’t you see? Don’t you understand what’s happening out there? _

But Brian was quiet around Henry. Maybe Henry’s uneasy silence inspired him to shut his own mouth. Or maybe talking about anything except the war seemed like a joke, but talking about it seemed impossible. He’d sit on the porch, sharpening a stick, and silently reflecting on the war with Henry.

Susan was sure Henry would get better as Dave grew, but he seemed to get even worse. With every inch of growth Susan marked on the wall above Dave’s head, it seemed as if her husband took a step back from reality. He began taking nightly walks that got a little longer with every passing day. 

When Dave was five years old, he became a big brother. It was the greatest honor of his life.

Margaret (Maggie) Katz was always tiny. She was born as what the adults called a “pre-mee,” but Dave didn’t know what that meant, and his mother was too sad to answer when he asked.

But he didn’t really care. Even if that meant Maggie was an alien from one of his comic books, he didn’t care. He loved her nonetheless (but he did hope that she would develop superpowers).

Eventually, Henry stopped coming home most nights. Susan swallowed a handful of pills and waited for the day when Henry wouldn’t return. On the rare nights when her husband was home, he’d turn Susan around to make love, because he could no longer look at her.

When Dave was eleven and Maggie was six, Henry came home from work to find them playing with toy guns in the backyard. He quietly put down his briefcase and sat at the table next to the window. He didn’t scream at them, or hit Dave, or bury the guns in the backyard. He just watched. 

As Maggie ran up to her big brother, and fired mock shots into his chest, he collapsed onto the grass and writhed around dramatically. In the way his six year old daughter held herself, Henry could almost see the strong young woman she’d become. He could see her butting heads with her mother and leaving home at the age of sixteen. She’d travel with strangers, have some nights she’d want to die and some nights she’d want to never end. She’d grow her hair real long and speak to big crowds. 

She’d go to Woodstock and witness history in the making. In the end, she wouldn’t remember most of the Sixties.

Her mother would write to her just twice in the upcoming decade: the night Mr. Kennedy was shot, and the night that her brother was shot. She’d never hear from her mother again after that. 

Susan would die in her sleep in her early fifties. It could’ve been the pills, or the alcohol - likely a combination of both. With one child dead, and the other thousands of miles away, her brother-in-law, Brian, would arrange the funeral. It would be declared a “quiet ceremony,” which was a really nice way of saying that no one came.

Maggie would be the only member of her immediate family to survive past the year nineteen-seventy.

Henry knew his family even if he didn’t really know them. He’d seen enough. He knew how it would end if left. He left anyway.

There’s a farm somewhere in rural Wisconsin. It stands frozen in the year 1954, where Dave Katz kissed someone for the first time. He kissed a boy.

Fourteen year old Dave Katz cried himself to sleep that night, believing,  _ knowing  _ he was going to hell. It was all over.

His mother was usually in bed or passed out on the couch, but his Uncle Brian took him to church. 

Father Anthony spoke about the homosexuals - never explicitly, he didn’t want to influence anyone. But he said enough for Dave to know that there was no place for him in God’s eyes. He knew what a man’s duties were, he knew how to be a man. 

Brian would never understand homosexuality, even though he knew of its existence. He believed that being gay was a choice. He didn’t hear about it until he was an adult, so he figured it must not be real. Because things are only real when you say them out loud, and no one had said anything until he was well set in his ways.

Dave knew since he was a boy that he was gay, but he kept quiet about it. The only proof was the men he’d meet in the barn at 2am, and there was when he indulged himself. He saw no point in holding back. After all, he’d already secured a place in hell. Though it didn’t stop him from crying when he was alone. Sometimes the men he met would try to approach him at the Church or at the market. He'd turn the other way and pretend they weren't there.

Maggie would see two girls kiss at a music festival in the late sixties, and find herself thinking about it from time to time. Even when she was old, and her family was dead, and those two girls were likely dead. 

It was only when Dave was in his twenties that he decided that none of it mattered.

He stopped thinking about heaven and hell, he started to smile more and laugh a lot. 

Brian would shake his head at his nephew for taking life so lightly.

There was no Big World War that Dave would fight in, no depression to teach him what hunger was. He’d be allowed to forget the number in his bank account, and he’d never know the void in empty pockets. His mind would be pure, he’d be allowed to get fat. He’d be womanly and weak. 

At least, that’s the way everyone thought it would happen. When the United States got involved in Vietnam’s war, Brian was relieved. He pushed Dave to enlist, because that’s what men did, and that was what they should continue to do.

So, by his family’s request, Dave manned up and enlisted.

Vietnam is different from Wisconsin in all the worst ways. The air is thick, and hot, and relentless. The sweat that drips warmly down Dave’s body makes his uniform stick to him and irritates his skin. The insects are big and loud, and fly freely through the air - unrestricted by any wind. Everything feels hostile - the animals, the people, the trees that towered above him and the soft soil beneath him. It was as if the land itself didn’t want him there. He felt like a parasite in a body, like the environment was one, omniscient being, and glared down at those who did not belong.

The worst of it was the anticipation that burned and churned Dave’s stomach every minute of every day. Any step could trigger a trap, every tree could shield an enemy. The American soldiers sometimes called the VC “rats,” after the tunnels they’d dig underground. The land was there’s and everyone and everything knew it - and nowhere was safe, not even the camp. 

Despite this, Dave refused to lose his positivity. He’d tell jokes during meals, he’d say hello to his neighbors, and he smiled at strangers. He’d get to know everyone in the camp by name, for as long as he could, before things were moved around. Then he’d learn the new men’s names. Some men acted like his positivity was annoying - they’d role their eyes and sigh. But everyone admired it, and looked forward to seeing him. He was their hope, their saving grace. Their sunshine.


End file.
